


Four Times Ashe Experienced Magic, and One She Cast It

by katrani



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: Bittersweet, Business, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Spa Day, Sparring, good luck charms, self discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 10:21:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7044502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrani/pseuds/katrani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashe finds enjoyment in the little things, for once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Again, a lot of speculation here, and an older work so maybe not as good a grasp on the characters, but I hope everyone enjoys it anyways.

**i.**

She sees a blur of red coming at her, and dodges quickly to the side, bringing up her practice staff to deflect any possible strike that might follow her. Gregor dashes past her, turning as soon as he’s past and aiming a downward strike at her.

Ashe sidesteps again, resisting the urge to use magic to buff herself against an opponent. This is a sparring match, not a real fight, she shouldn’t use an unfair advantage. She aims at Gregor’s side, hoping to take advantage of him putting too much power into his attacks. But his reflexes are extremely well-honed, and he manages to slant his staff just enough that it knocks Ashe’s blow off-center.

They continue like that, dodging and blocking each other, until they each start taking sharp blows. They’re slowing down, exhausted and tired. Blows are off-center even though they make it past defenses, dodges are sluggish, counters are just a beat too late.

Ashe’s muscles are screaming at her, her entire body alight with excitement. She’s never been this worn-out without any real danger being apparent. It’s probably bad that she’s this happy, but she just feels so /alive/ and eager, it’s hard to think about that.

A loud clack resounds across the area in front of Nine Shrines Adventure and Dines, and the two of them stop with their staffs crossing each other, breathing heavily. He’s grinning at her. “That was fun! Been a while since someone’s been able to keep up with me.”

Ashe chuckles even as she starts sinking to the ground; glad to note that his knees are buckling too. “Well, you did land more hits. I’m just sturdier than most everyone around here.” Her heart’s pounding, and she tries to breathe deeply to calm it. She lets her staff fall to the ground so she can sit on the grass.

Gregor turns and sits with his back to hers, the two of them leaning against each other as they recover from their bout. “It’s very fun, to say the least.”

“Yeah.” Ashe closes her eyes, focusing on her rushing pulse and aching limbs, the soreness of what will be bruises. Every hint of weakness she takes as a blessing, so long as there’s nothing threatening her, and she’s very grateful to Gregor for suggesting this match.


	2. Chapter 2

**ii.**

“Can I take the blindfold off? Please?”

“C'mon, Ashe, you don’t wanna ruin the surprise!” Markus insists. He’s got one hand around her wrist, guiding her through the forest. Occasionally he’ll tug her to one side to dodge a branch, or pull upwards to indicate she should step higher so a root doesn’t trip her.

Ashe huffs out a sigh. “At least give me an idea where we’re going.”

“It’s something you’ll appreciate! A lot! Look, just trust me for another minute.”

He sounds so eager, she can’t bring herself to ruin the fun. “Fine, but only a minute.”

Markus quickens his pace, and Ashe tries to listen for anything going on. They’re definitely in the woods, and she knows they started off heading east, but after a while with the blindfold she could only guess. Finally, she feels a breeze all around her instead of just going past, so can only assume that they’re in a more open area.  She can also hear running water- so this must be near the small river that cuts through the woods.

Markus puts his hand at the back of her head, and tugs the blindfold off in one dramatic motion. “Ta-da! Welcome to your spa!”

Ashe blinks, a little startled by the sudden light. When her eyes adjust a second later, she can only gape. The sun’s setting, tinting the sky a vibrant red and purple. The river matches the color, with the addition of glittering silver sparks. A few imps sit scattered around the clearing, as if at different stations. A few have brushes and cloths with them, some are by a stump that’s got a plush pillow sitting atop it.

Confused, she turns to Markus. “What the hell is this?”

“A spa day!” He grins at her, even as he puts the blindfold on himself. “I’ll stay and translate for my imps, but otherwise you have complete privacy!”

She remains skeptical. “I don’t know if I trust your imps, Markus…”

“Look, if you don’t like the shoulder massage- or anything after it at any point- you can stop, but at least give it an attempt? Please? You seem so stressed all the time, I just wanted to help.”

Ashe rolls her eyes. “Fine, just stop pouting.” She makes sure he can’t see anything by bringing her hand up and almost punching him- she stops right before she’d hit his nose, and he doesn’t flinch, so she’s satisfied with that. “Okay, so where’s the first imp I need to go to?”

Markus bounces up and down on the balls of his feet, grinning brightly, apparently not bothered by having a sense limited. “Right over there! Sergei, sound off!”

Ashe heads to the imp that replies, and lays down on the grass in front of him- Markus said this was a shoulder massage, after all. She enjoys it, oddly enough, each of the bits of stress built up in her body slowly melting away. After that it’s a bath in the glittering water, cinnamon- and vanilla-scented by some potion Markus must’ve thrown in here. The imp there has a bunch of different soaps, and shampoos her fluff of hair for her.

There’s more massages and some of the imps play some chill jazz  and her hair’s brushed through and her nails groomed and it’s so ridiculous that Ashe can’t help but let it relax her. Maybe whimsical is the right word? Either way, she feels very serene by the time it’s done, even though she normally doesn’t care for fancy stuff like this. For once, her mind isn’t swirling with doubt or worry, fears or anxieties, and she can just trust that things will be okay for a few minutes.

Her last massage done, she heads over to where Markus is laying on the grass, and nudges him with her foot. “Hey, all done.”

He lifts the blindfold from his face. “Feel better?”

“I- yeah, I do. That really helped.” She smiles down at him and offers her hand. He takes it, and she pulls him up. “Thank you, Markus.”


	3. Chapter 3

**iii.**

“Kyr!” Ashe stomps across the grass, heading for her tree. How the _fuck_ did they find out where her spot was? And she’s ticked off at Markus, who kept distracting her all afternoon. She’s barely managing not to be pre-emptively mad at Kyr. “You better not be messing with my things!”

Kyr’s actually standing outside, fiddling nervously with something on one of his belts. He’s quivering a little, but he doesn’t back away from her or anything. “I had a present for you,” he explains sheepishly, once she’s standing in front of him with a glare on her face and her arms crossed over her chest. “And I asked Markus if he could keep you away while I set it up.”

“Set _what_ up,” she says, voice flat from the effort of not yelling at him for invading her space. She knows he’s sensitive, and doesn’t want to make him feel guilty for doing a nice thing, but she also makes thinks she’ll have to talk to him about this when she’s calmer.

“Here.” He turns and pushes her door open, then smiles nervously at her. “It’s um. I remember you telling Thog about some of your charms and stuff, so I,  uh. I wanted to give you something like mine.”

Ashe raises an eyebrow suspiciously, but she’s more curious than anything. What sort of lucky item could he want to give her? She steps into her little hovel, looking around curiously.

There’s a new centerpiece to the room she’s hollowed out of the trunk of this tree. Hanging from the ceiling is a mobile of different colored glass pieces, attached by thin wire to each other. The light coming through her doorway and the one window (formerly a bird’s nest hollow) shines on it, putting spotlights on various small items, jewel tones of red and green and blue and black and really every color she could think to name.

Kyr steps into the room past her, and nervously explains. “When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I need something to focus on, right? But there’s so many things rattling around that I need help picking something, or else it just doesn’t work and I keep getting distracted. So I pick a color, like this light blue here.” He taps the relevant shard, making it swing a little on its wire. “And then I spin it, and whatever it lands on is what I mess with.” He lightly grabs one of the branches of the mobile, pushes it, and steps back as it whirls around.

Ashe is entranced by the dance of lights around her room, twirling colors and brief flashes of brightness. Slowly, the mobile slows, and the light blue bit of glass is reflecting light onto an old talisman against injuries that she carved for herself. She walks over to it, turns it over in her hands, remembering the weeks of practice it took to get the right pattern to appear in the wood, how proud she was of the curves following the natural whorls of the grain. It’s actually a decent distraction from her recent worries about what the party thinks of her, remembering what her own actions can make her feel.

“Do you like it?” Kyr asks, surprisingly quiet, a little nervously excitedly.

Ashe steps towards him, and hesitantly hugs the big guy around his middle. “Yeah. Thank you, Kyr. It’s- well, I think it’ll help a lot.”

She’s squeezed by him returning the embrace, and feels his laughter more than hears it as it rumbles through his chest. “Glad to hear it!”

“Mm.” She pulls back, looks up at him, then scowls a little. “But next time, ask before coming into my home, got it?”


	4. Chapter 4

**iv.**

Thog’s morning ritual always intrigues Ashe. He gets some coffee (with whiskey in it, usually), and sits to look through a stack of paperwork at the bar. Then he eats some food, and makes copies of the paperwork he just looked at. Then he stuffs it all into a leather folder and takes it to his office at the back of the bar, and emerges an hour later with a book full of numbers. He sits and asks the others while they ready the bar for opening each night various things, like if they notice something missing from the stock or if they buy anything with company money. He copies what they say down, and returns the book to his office only to return with more papers that he keeps on a shelf under the business side of the bar and adds to throughout the night.  
  
“Don’t you ever get tired of writing so much?” Ashe asks one day while she eats her own breakfast after sparring with Gregor.  
  
“Someone has to keep records of what we go through, especially since half of it is internal and not fucking sold,” he answers gruffly. He barely glances up at her as he keeps copying. “And I need the original paperwork, and structured copies, and then I have to keep track of things overnight, and the summaries of it all by day and week and month.”  
  
Curious, Ashe gets up and walks over to him, peering at the papers over his shoulder. “Doesn’t your wrist hurt?”  
  
“Not anymore. I’m used to it. Plus the gun helps build up muscles, dealing with the recoil.”  
  
She can’t resist the image that comes to mind. “So does that mean the first time you fired it it came up and knocked you in the face?”  
  
“I’m not fucking Markus.” He realizes his phrasing a moment later and slams his head down against the desk while Ashe tries not to chuckle. “I meant, I was fighting and such before that. I’ve never had that loose of a grip.”  
  
“Still, it must be tedious. You spend most of your day copying that stuff down.”  
  
Thog shrugs. “If you want to help, I guess I can teach you. You need to start acting like a manager anyways. I might have my gun back, but you still have the title.”  
  
“I guess, and I _do_ need the writing practice, even if it is mostly numbers,” Ashe answers, a little hesitantly. She doesn’t really want to accept more responsibility over her teammates, but she does want to help out a little.  
  
“Then pay attention. This column is stock as-was, and this is how it is this morning, so here’s what we went through overnight, and this table is what customers got…” Thog starts explaining, pointing to each section as he does. He has Ashe repeat it back to him, and a few minutes later when he starts on the next sheet, making sure she remembers. He brings his book out to explain its contents as well, and that night keeps pausing conversations to tell Ashe what he’s making notes about.  
  
The next morning she shows up with her own quills in tow, and Thog sets her to work. Instead of having her start with the current stuff to help him, he gives her old sheets and a fresh book to start going over, and at night separate pages to keep her own notes on, so she can get used to it all. Her mind swirls with numbers and lists but she pushes herself to keep up with it, to make her own record-keeping up to par.She lets it flood her mind, busy and buzzing, because it’s better than worrying about leaving Meathe, or how much she uses her powers on adventures. She’s too mentally exhausted to let her emotions needle at her when she gets home, too concentrated to have her thoughts wander to other people from a life that almost seems not her own anymore. Even the cramped fingers and sore wrist are worth it, for actually being able to _do_ something and have her worries disappear instead of just shutting everything out all at once.  
  
Plus, it’s nice, working with Thog. He doesn’t bother her except if he notices a mistake, and offers her a brace at some point when he notices her shaking her hand out to try and relieve some of the soreness. It’s a comfortable silence, one they can both enjoy, and everyone else knows not to bother Thog while he’s messing with his records so they leave Ashe alone for this as well.  
  
After a couple of weeks, Thog lets her help him with the normal paperwork, copying over things and then proofing the summary book, sharing notes at night. It’s amazing, watching everything piece together, fitting it all in like a puzzle and putting each item in the bar into the same system. Ashe loves it actually, knowing that there’s a way to make sense of it all and keep track of what’s going on besides simply noting costs: amounts and (rarely) customer preferences and the things her friends take as well.  
  
After a month, Thog gives her a book and folder and a box of paper all for herself. “It’s common practice to keep multiple copies of everything,” he explains, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “And you seem to enjoy doing this with me. So from now on I won’t check your stuff, unless there’s a problem that I notice and I need a second source. Just keep up with it, okay?”  
  
Ashe takes it, unsure what to say. Getting this all together must have been expensive. “…I will, Thog,” she promises. “So long as I’m not on adventures at the time.”  
  
“Well, obviously. I don’t expect you to know what’s going on in the bar while you’re out. But here.” He hands her a much smaller book. “I don’t know if you have a personal journal, but here’s another. Keep notes, stay in practice.”  
  
“I do, but thanks Thog. So much.” She smiles at him, then settles down to get to work. “Got the coffee going?”


	5. Chapter 5

**v.**

Ashe breathes in, and out. Slowly. Very carefully, she focuses her mind inwards. To the pulsing green power that fills her being, carefully wrapped inside herself, tied to her shape by the blue chains of her bindings. She edges a little of it out, very carefully.  
  
The power reacts to her tugging on it, surging towards that point, sensing a weakness where it might filter out. She clamps down on it, closes it off, gasping for breath as a sudden panic settles on her.She opens her eyes, and sees a small spark dancing between her fingertips. She squeals in surprise; it vanishes. She leans forward, long white hair falling past her face as she holds her hand in the opposite wrist and checks it for any possible burns. Nothing.  
  
Father always tells her she can’t use her powers, not for anything, unless it’s an emergency. That any use of it will erode her humanity. She had to use them, once, when a hurricane was about to cross their island and she fought it off. She could feel herself as lesser after that, found it difficult to understand the other children without spending a minute thinking about their reactions, but now, she senses no change in herself. And that spark- it must be from the Guardian! It _must!_  
  
“Father was wrong,” she whispers to herself, then giggles. “He was wrong!” She’s been suspecting it, ever since she realized any cut or scrape she got would heal automatically overnight. Everyone else kept similar wounds for three or four days, but hers only last a few hours, even as she constantly pushes the Guardian’s power away from herself when it wants to activate.   
  
She quickly quiets herself though, remembering it’s late, and she doesn’t want anyone coming to check on her.  
  
She blows out the candle sitting next to her, and crawls into bed. She pulls on a thread of the Guardian’s powers again, making another spark appear and watching it in fascination. She works on directing it over her skin, up her arm and down to her toes and all around her torso.  
  
She nods off as the first grey touches of pre-dawn light creep through her window, excitement finally giving into exhaustion. Even as she slips into sleep, her thoughts keep coming back to the same thing:  
  
 _Father’s wrong._


End file.
